


Breathe Ourselves Out And Away

by BurningFairytales



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-23
Updated: 2013-04-23
Packaged: 2017-12-09 02:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/769022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurningFairytales/pseuds/BurningFairytales
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a quiet night. Castiel contemplates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathe Ourselves Out And Away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FaustianAspirant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaustianAspirant/gifts).



Once, a long time ago, there was a good man.

He was compassionate and kind-hearted, and he always thought of others before he thought of himself.

This man’s name was Tobit, and although he lived in a time when not believing in God was out of the question, he was a man of exceptional faith. There was one timen when he found people who had been killed and left on the streets to rot, and he attempted to provide a proper burial for them, even though the king had forbid it. They were people he had never met before, but Tobit always believed in doing the right thing, and as a result of his kind-hearted actions, the king took all his belongings and exiled him. He was blinded; his marriage was strained and he eventually even prayed for death.

Castiel knows this story well. He was aware of his father hearing the prayers and sending out his brother Raphael for help. Back then, he had his own mission and he had not been present when it happened, but news spread fast, even among angels: _Tobit shall live. Raphael will go to his son, and together they shall find him a cure._

The journey of Raphael and Tobiah is a memory that Castiel has always been fond of.

His brother took on a human vessel, and, keeping his real identity a secret, helped Tobit’s son, with travelling to the far-off land Media. And Raphael didn’t just stop at helping him find a cure for his blinded father; he helped him with collecting quite a sum of money to build himself a life and he helped him marry a beautiful girl.

It was only after his work was done and Tobit was healed, that Raphael left and returned to Heaven.

It is a memory that Castiel has always been fond of, but lately it has also become one that saddens him, and he doesn’t quite understand why.

He is standing in the yard behind Bobby’s house; unbeknown to the humans within. Dean and Sam have just gotten back from a hunt; they’re tired, and Castiel doesn’t want to disturb them. So he settles for watching from the outside. It gives him time to think. Although lately, he is not too sure whether that is a good thing or not.

The angel wonders when it was, exactly, that he began to doubt his cause. The choice of fighting on the side of the humans instead of for his brothers and sisters had never been entirely intentional; of course he took the last step by returning Dean to his brother moments before Lucifer had risen from his Cage, but that was all it was: _the last step_. His doubt and his feelings had been building up long before that. Was it when his siblings started being killed? When he was forced to make the Righteous Man face his tormenter and torture him instead? Or when he was attacked by Uriel, his brother and friend?

No, it had started even before that.

It may have been back when Anna, his sister, his mentor, his confidante, decided to Fall.

He had always been close to the angels in his garrison, but he'd been the closest to Uriel and Anna. They had fought together, done missions together and spent time together... they had probably been something like what he would now call friends.

And he had valued their relationship. He thought that they knew and understood each other.

But then Anna fell, and Castiel started questioning.

Why did she fall? Why would she choose to?

And when they got the order to hunt her down and take her life, he regretted it. It wasn't a conscious thought, and he believed that Uriel, of all people, felt the same way. After all, they had a history, and it meant something to him.

But when he voiced his thoughts to his brother, Uriel just stared at him, like he couldn't quite understand what it was that Castiel expected from him. And that was when he realised that he was not supposed to feel this kind of regret. It was acceptable to mourn the future death of their sister, but to regret an order to the point of questioning its justification... that was intolerable.

And so he unconsciously hid it. Never spoke of it; pretended he didn't feel that way. Because he was a good son, loyal to his father and his siblings, and he didn't doubt. Not like Lucifer had.

Not like Anna had.

So was that when it all started? With his sister choosing humanity over her family?

Castiel doesn’t know. He doesn’t remember exactly when it was that that the lines of “good” and “bad” started becoming blurry; when everything he used to know became so twisted that he couldn’t even recognise it anymore.

And to think that now he is on the exact same path that Anna chose... fighting for mankind and trying to prevent Michael and Lucifer from getting to their respective vessels, instead of supporting the cause... the irony is not lost to him.

Castiel gives a small sigh, and lets his eyes wander to the windows of the house. He sees Dean flopping down on Bobby’s couch, a bottle of alcoholic beverage in his hand. It might be whiskey, but he isn’t too sure; but then again, he supposes it shouldn’t matter.

Except that it does.

With Dean it always does.

Castiel still has a hard time understanding emotions and moods; Dean’s especially. It would help immensely if he would just say what he was feeling and thinking about, but because it is Dean, and because Dean does not talk about emotions _(“No chick-flick moments, Cas.”)_ that will not happen anytime soon.

So Castiel is left with grasping at straws, and trying to figure Dean out with the few options he has. Like, for example, Dean’s consumption of alcohol.

He always drinks alcohol; so that alone doesn’t give Castiel much to go on, but it’s something else about it that gives him a hint as to how Dean is feeling. The quantity, for one thing. Dean drinks more when he is feeling angry or sad. When he is feeling better, he usually settles for just one to two bottles of beer. And that is another hint. When Dean is not in a bar, _what_ he drinks gives Castiel a good idea about his emotions as well. Is he feeling better (because he rarely ever sees Dean feeling _good_ anymore, so his less troubled are exactly that: feeling better than usual), Dean drinks beer. He goes for the high-proof alcohol when something bad has happened, when he does not feel good and he is trying to... _"drown his sorrows"_ he believes is the expression. Castiel once asked him whether it made him feel better.

Back then, he thought he didn’t understand the appeal of it when Dean replied that it made him feel nothing. Now he gets it: It’s not that the alcohol doesn’t have any effect, but rather that it literally makes him feel nothing, makes him feel numb.

And that is better than feeling the pain.

Worried, Castiel moves a little closer, and sees that the bottle in Dean’s hand is, indeed, a bottle of beer. All three of them are smiling; Bobby wears an expression that, to any other person, would resemble irritation, but by now, Castiel has learned to read the small signs ( _like the rising in the corners of his mouth, the way his eyes are lighter, how there seems to be no force behind the expression_ ), to realise that he is not really infuriated but only pretending to be.

He gives a small sigh of relief. He is okay. They are okay.

He has often wondered why it is that Dean and Sam are fighting. Of course he knows about their history, but he also knows that they have long avenged their mother; they have killed Azazel, and both have suffered in doing so.

They have suffered and they are tired, and they don't believe in their destiny, so for what reason do they keep fighting? What is it that makes them think that they are able to stand up to not only demons, but to angels, too?

When he asked, the brothers looked at each other, looked at him and said that they couldn't just _not_ do it.

 _("The world is ending, Cas." "It's literally the freakin' apocalypse!" "If we don't fight for it, if we don't stand up for humanity, then who will?"_ )

At first, he thought he didn't understand. No one told them to do it, their father was gone, their mother was gone, and if they didn't believe in their destiny, then what was it that caused this sense of duty?

But then he remembered. It wasn't always that every angel thought they were better than a human. Stronger, yes. More powerful, yes. But not _better_ in terms of worth. God had wanted the angels to love mankind. And they all had, if not loved them, respected them for being his father’s creations.

There was a time when even his brother Raphael had cared for humanity.

Back when he had helped Tobiah and Tobit, Raphael did what he was supposed to do, not because their Father had told him to do it, but because he honestly didn’t mind helping those people. He didn’t need to help Tobiah get married to a woman, he didn’t need to stay and make sure that Tobiah cured their father. Raphael had been told to help him find a cure and he had; he could have easily left after that.

But he had stayed. And he had helped. And Raphael hadn’t minded.

And his brother hadn’t minded being mistaken for a human, either. He hadn't insisted on being worshipped and respected. All it had taken was a simple disguise and he had walked among humanity as if he was one of them.

But Castiel had been naïve then. To be with his brothers and sisters, be with his father had seemed like a fact, something that _had been_ for all of his existence and would continue to _be_ for the rest of it. His faith and belief had been like ground he’d build everything on, and he’d believed they would never fail him.

(But they did; they shattered like they had never been more than glass: thin and breakable.)

Then, their father went missing, and things started to go downhill.

Two thousand years. It has already been two thousand years since the last time an angel walked the earth.

Now, there are very few left who truly care about humans. There are very few who would choose to be among them without good reason. Anna had been one of them, and she had fallen. Castiel himself was one of them, and even he was slowly but surely losing his connection to Heaven.

It is a shame, he thinks, because there used to be a time when Raphael himself would choose to keep his identity a secret; all it took was a vessel and he blended in with the humans without further ado.

Now his brother cares just as little for them as the others do. Castiel has seen his vessel, and, although Raphael hasn’t exactly treated him badly (the man would have looked a lot worse if he had), he hasn’t treated him with the care and respect he deserved, either. The man’s mind had been completely shattered, and there is no one there who knew how to pick up the pieces.

Castiel truly feels sorry for the man.

But what he’s even sorrier for is that the gap between humans and angels has been growing indefinitely larger every day and he doesn’t understand why.

Of course, he didn’t realise at first. He didn’t notice how humans and angels had drifted apart. He didn’t give it much thought. As an angel of the Lord, you carry out your duties; there is nothing more expected from you.

But after coming to the earth, after meeting the Winchesters and watching them fight with all they have for people they don’t even know… Castiel was reminded that fighting and warfare is not the only thing the human race is good at. It’s not even the biggest part of what they are.

They care deeply for each other. Thinking about Dean and Sam and how much they mean to him after only this short period of time makes him understand why they fight battles that an angel would claim are unnecessary.

Why many of them don’t give up even when they are most likely to lose.

This realisation is overwhelming. Coming to understand the human race, even if just a little, but knowing that they are resented by many of his kind and that this will not change just because Castiel himself loves them, causes an ache deep within him. It’s like he has lost something, but does not know what.

After all, this has been going on for such a long time, even without him noticing, and it’s silly to mourn something that hasn’t even existed for millennia. But the feeling will not go away, no matter how much he wills it to. It’s almost frightening in its persistence.

Why can’t his brothers and sisters be as accepting of mankind as they used to? Where did their willingness to help go? Where is the time in which they were willing and ready to learn from one another? Where are they, and how can they be brought back?

Another sigh.

In the distance, he can see two shapes walking down the street and focuses on them. They're two women; both human. One is slightly taller than the other, and they are... laughing?

Somewhat curious as to the reason for their laughter, he listens in to their conversation.

 _"... and then I grin, look him straight into the eyes and tell him I have no idea..."_ the taller one makes a wild, sweeping gesture with her arms.

 _"...can't pay the rent, but when you think about it, that's pretty funny_..." The smaller one stops walking and looks down, but before she can say anything, the other woman takes her hand and smiles at her. Castiel hears the words _"It'll be okay, we'll manage."_ whispered quietly, and that's enough to make the smaller woman smile in return. She takes one step ahead, leans up and presses a small kiss onto the corner of her mouth. Still holding hands, they continue walking.

At first he doesn't understand. It sounded like these two are troubled, and yet they were laughing like that without a care in the world. Shouldn't they be worried? Frowning instead of smiling? But then it dawns on him. They can be that happy despite their worries... because they have each other. They can smile like that, because, even if they might lose their lodging, they will still have each other. And that seems to be enough for them. They remind each other of that, and they keep each other's spirits up.

How do his brothers and sisters not see this? How can they not see just how amazing humanity can be?

Maybe... maybe they have become too focused on themselves. Of course being an angel has far more advantages than drawbacks. And Castiel will freely admit that he misses it. He misses the constant awareness of being loved by his family, misses being stronger and more powerful than any human, misses the thought of Heaven as safety and family and _home_.

And there's also the aspect of having existed since the dawn of time, which led to far more knowledge than any human could ever perceive. Yes, being an angel is something he could never come to hate.

But that's exactly the reason for his family to feel the way they do, isn't it? Angels, if they aren't killed, are eternal. Compared to them, a human life is tiny. Seemingly insignificant. To an angel, their lives are nothing more than just a spark over a bonfire and yet they act like they have the right to judge how the Earth is to be treated.

To an angel, humans are arrogant creatures.

Even Castiel himself used to think like that. Just a little, but he was always under the impression that humans need more guidance, because they make all the wrong choices.

Now he knows that, although their choices may not always be the best, they mostly do it for the right reasons. They fight for what they believe in; they don't _have_ that much guidance, and they try their best to to make up for that.

Having to choose a path yourself... having to face the consequences if the wrong one is chosen... Castiel has learned how frightening that is. He's only learning how to do this himself. He is only now learning how to fail.

He thinks that, at some point, his siblings have given up on trying to love humanity, because their ignorant lives are so fleeting anyway. Maybe they think that it's no use trying to teach them how to do better. But what they fail to see is how... warm humans actually are. They always try their best, not only for themselves, but for the people they love, and they _can_ change. Maybe not right away, but change is inevitable. And it's not just the angels that have the ability to change humanity for the better. People change the angels, too. Even if they don't see it. Even if they don't want to see it. Every angel that comes in contact with human is changed; just the way they themselves are.

What about Anna, for example? Anna, who, after watching mankind fell in love with them and chose to fall in order to join them. Who chose their imperfection over the impeccability of her siblings, solely because she envied them for their messy and complicated feelings. The same feelings that Castiel had learned to love.

Or Gabriel. Sure, primarily he had run away because he couldn't face his brothers' fighting. He had joined the Pagan Gods and only their father knew everything that happened in the meantime. But it was Gabriel that stopped running and faced Lucifer. It was Gabriel that chose to take a stand after he'd seen humanity fight a battle they were destined to lose from the start, whereas he would have never chosen to fight a battle he couldn't win before.

And Castiel himself... he has changed, too. He never used to question the orders he got. Now he doubts. He questions. And he feels very much lost. Does that make him a bad son? Another thing that he doesn't know; it seems the list keeps growing.

The more he considers it, the lonelier he feels. He knows that the choice he made is the right one; that's just about the only thing he doesn't doubt. But that doesn't make him miss his family any less, and it doesn't make him feel any less lonely.

He thinks back to the two women from the street, who might just lose everything, who were troubled and worried... but never lonely, because they still had each other. A perfect example of humanity's beauty. And they saw it themselves, didn't they? Humans who loved could see the best in each other. And these feelings of loving, of appreciating each other, they stayed with them, even when a person died. They stayed with their family and friends and they stayed with the soul that entered Heaven. Even when a human life was fleeting, the impact it had on the world was far more persistent. And it was these feelings, this capability of feeling that made humanity so special; that gave them the right to live their lives as they pleased. And it was also what made them change the angels who came in contact with them.

Tilting his head back, Castiel looks at the sky. It’s almost dark; the sun has nearly disappeared behind the horizon. He almost envies those two humans from before for their bond. Does he have anyone like that? Now that he has basically turned his back on his family and Heaven itself... has he someone he can share his troubles with?

Just in that moment, he hears Bobby's front door open and turns to see Dean stepping out into the yard, bottle of beer in one hand, a duffel bag in the other. He still wears a smile on his face, and the sight pleases Castiel, because it is so rare.

In fact, he is so deep in thought about how it is quite sad that he doesn't smile as genuienly more often, that he doesn't even realise Dean is staring right back.

"Cas?"

Oh. Of course, he must have been visible this whole time. But then, he hadn't considered the possibility of someone stepping outside.

Dean walks up to him. "I was just gonna throw this into the trunk. How long have you been standing there?" Shouldering the bag, he lays a hand on Castiel's shoulder and gasps a little. "Son of a- Cas! You're freezing; how long have you been standing there?"

"I don't know for sure. My guess would be around 2 hours, but I have not been paying attention to the time."

"Gee, man, why didn't you just come in?"

"I came here to think."

"What are- you know what, nevermind. Lemme just put this away."

Dean jogs up to the Impala and throws the bag into trunk, before closing it, and making his way back to the front door.

"Look, I don't know what was so important that you had to stand outside in the freezing cold for - and don't start talking about wavelengths and angel radio - but I'm sure can do it inside, right?"

Of course. How has he not see it? Hasn't Dean been with him all the way? Dean and Sam and Bobby... they are there for him, aren't they? And if he doesn't speak up about what is troubling him, then it is his fault and not theirs. They trust him to come to them. How has he not seen that?

"Cas, you coming?"

Castiel looks at the open door, looks back at the yard and the street and then back to the door. He shakes his head.

And he goes inside.

**Author's Note:**

> This is Life's Christmas present, which I am only uploading now. (She did get it in printed form on time though, so it's not as late as it seems ;) )  
> She once told me that she'd love to read a Castiel fic that related to Rilke's second Duino Elegy, so this is my attempt at that :)


End file.
